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IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

koshka.love

221–230 of 446 posts

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#221
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally all of your concerns are 100% solved by adding a log bot to the channels you care about, both on IRC and Discord. I’m beyond sick of the helplessness performative shtick around Discord. This is an ancient problem with obvious solutions. Do better.

You're right, this is a solved problem. On the other hand, mobile access on IRC not being unpleasant isn't and won't be, though, so the search for something better for users will continue. (To their credit, IRCCloud tries. They are the best swing at it I've seen. They aren't Slack-good, let alone Discord-good. The search continues.)

You might check out The Lounge.

https://thelounge.chat

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#222

Was IRC ever used privately and internally within the workplace? I'd like to know if anyone did. I only ever used it briefly with forum communities and some older OSS projects. At work, it has only ever been Slack. Some older employees recall using Skype for Business.

RH still has IRC, but it's rather deprecated.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#223
> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC [...]

First off, I love IRC and always will. But boy, the author sure must have a stable internet connection. In my experience one blip means a lost message with no indication that it's been lost. That is not my definition of reliable.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#224
post #80
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good reasons to not have a backlog in a chat system. For one it stops you from being lazy and not maintaining FAQs and documentation. It also forces you to stop treating the chat as something you need to keep up to date with. At work I see people commonly scrolling back for pages and pages to find the last read marker and continue reading from there. This seems unhealthy to me. I use a bouncer but I very ra…

I worked on a global team and conversation happens 24/7. When my bouncer dropped, I would miss out on critical stuff.

That fair… but does that sound like a that called for a synchronous system?

It seems someone chose the wrong thing, then you needed a history feature to bridge the gap.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So supplement IRC with a bunch of other services? Realising people didn't want to deal with this shit is why discord is so popular. (Seriously, this response and others like it demonstrate that IRC will continue to remain a niche. I won't fault you if this kind of setup works for you but suggesting this kind of thing is acceptable for the average user is really, truly, genuinely out of touch. I'm among the demographi…

[dead]

> Discord is popular because of network effects, virality, and marketing

I don't think you are even attempting to fairly represent Discord if this is what you actually believe

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#226
post #8

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC ultimately also means that there are a number of fancy modern features that Discord has that IRC lacks, a big one being the inability to view backlogs of conversations that transpired while one was not connected to an IRC server. Although IRC does not itself provide this functionality, the extremely simple nature of IRC allows for a couple of lightweight op…

I somehow fail to see how you cannot implement an IRC server that does logging and offers search/download of them on the side. That existing IRC implementations may be antiquated mammoth shit shouldn’t prevent anyone from building something new.

It's one of those things like "building an X server that isolates the graphics and events of untrusted clients from evert other client". It could be done, but people won't do it. They'll just whinge about its lack being inherent to the technology because there's more excitement in sweeping away the old tech and starting afresh than there is in building on what's there.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#228
post #223

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC [...] First off, I love IRC and always will. But boy, the author sure must have a stable internet connection. In my experience one blip means a lost message with no indication that it's been lost. That is not my definition of reliable.

IRC uses persistent TCP connections as a transport. You can't lose a message in the middle of a stream without the whole connection being closed, and your client would tell you about that.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#229
post #213
post #8

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC ultimately also means that there are a number of fancy modern features that Discord has that IRC lacks, a big one being the inability to view backlogs of conversations that transpired while one was not connected to an IRC server. Although IRC does not itself provide this functionality, the extremely simple nature of IRC allows for a couple of lightweight op…

Genuine question: Why isn't "run bot on top" a solution for this? And for that matter, for "pretty much everything?" Seems to me the simplicity of the bot is the biggest feature?

The average user cannot be expected to run an additional piece of software just to use chat.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#230

> The fundamental fact that Discord users refuse to see is that the platform isn't run on magic dust and fairy incantations, but actual human beings. Using Discord is no different from having a group of strangers sitting in your room with you, noting down every word you say to your friends and everything you run on your computer, and doing the devil knows what with it. Anyone making this argument doesn't understand w…

My main issue about Discord is not what it is, but what it replaced. A lot of websites or forums have been replaced by Discord. It sucks, because it's fundamentally a messaging app, but people will use it for reasons where a website would male sense ("link is in my Discord").
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